A labour of love and dirt
With Kwani? @10 in mind.
Growing
a garden is a dance of chance and defiance
that
sharpens your patience
or
proves that you have none.
You
defy nature; it edifies you.
A
language is sustained;
an
eloquence made of dust and tears.
Growing
a garden is a study in inelegance.
There
are no neat conclusions;
no
easy pickings. You work through a tangle
of
plants you have no name for.
They
speak back to you
in
tongues of green and brown
and
sometimes in the colour of death.
You
dream a discourse from broken stones
and
walk a path scattered with talking leaves.
Digging
is easy enough if you have the muscle for it.
But
it’s never the tilling, is it?
Gardening
is an attuning to the secrets of the soil;
a
willingness to listen to half-told mysteries;
to
coax life from reluctant roots and shoots.
Growing
things thrashes your illusions
but
never leaves you empty.
You
are at the mercy of fragile beginnings
that
may or may not take.
You
shape a thing or two; give them ideas.
While
you are sleeping,
little
men with green fingers come
and
make things grow,
and
you reap the joy in the song of a new leaf.
There
are cruel acts of kindness:
pruning,
pulling, culling, thinning.
Promises
are broken as often as kept,
scarring
you deep, and
keeping
you from ever trying
to
own the narrative.
You
caress it with miracle fingers;
with
reverence, and pass it on.
You
are a guardian, an imperfect angel
with
no flaming sword to ward off evil.
You
are armour-less seraph with the soft underbelly
of
those who labour in love, for love.
All
other things come second.
You
wield the subversive influence of the vulnerable.
You
are an angel nevertheless,
Tending
and spreading things as powerful as being.
